April 23, 2008

If he does not have the gumption to put me in my place, when superdelegates are deserting me, money is drying up, he’s outspending me 2-to-1 on TV ads, my husband’s going crackers and party leaders are sick of me, how can he be trusted to totally obliterate Iran and stop Osama?

Crackers. Crackers, indeed. Are we allowed to say "crackers"? Well, we can say waffles, so why not, in the grand scheme of bad carbohydrates, say crackers?

In the final days in Pennsylvania, he dutifully logged time at diners and force-fed himself waffles, pancakes, sausage and a Philly cheese steak. He split the pancakes with Michelle, left some of the waffle and sausage behind, and gave away the French fries that came with the cheese steak.

But this is clearly a man who can’t wait to get back to his organic scrambled egg whites. That was made plain with his cri de coeur at the Glider Diner in Scranton when a reporter asked him about Jimmy Carter and Hamas.

“Why” he pleaded, sounding a bit, dare we say, bitter, “can’t I just eat my waffle?”

His subtext was obvious: Why can’t I just be president? Why do I have to keep eating these gooey waffles and answering these gotcha questions and debating this gonzo woman?

If you whine about the reporters not letting you eat your waffle in peace, you'll never have the leadership ability to run the country. A real leader would have arranged to take his meals in peace, a lesser leader would have run off the reporters; a non-leader would sit there and whine about it.

Like most Obama backers - tacit or otherwise - Dowd simply assumes that the only question is how to force Clinton out for the good of the party; she even ends on a plea for Clinton to take herself out back and put her campaign down. It just doesn't seem to occur to her that if the primary is hurting the party, it takes two to tango, and maybe the other candidate -- the guy who, in Dowd's own words, can't "shake [Clinton] off," can't "put [her] in [her] place," can't "show [her] the door," "has missed several opportunities to smash the ball over the net and end the game," "complains about the politics of scoring points ... [without comprehending that] to win, you’ve got to score points," "tanked in the Philadelphia debate" (and now refuses to risk debating again), and most of all, can't wait to get away from all these ordinary people with their ordinary diners and unpretentious "carbo-load[ed]" food (and all this in the setting of a friendly primary!) -- maybe he should pull out.

Simon makes a good point. Why hasn't Obama been able to put her away? You'd think the fact that half of the Democratic voters don't want Obama would raise some questions about the man and/or his campaign, but all we hear is how Hillary needs to drop out. How about some articles on why Obama is unappealing to half of the party?

"Gooey... gotcha... gonzo...What's the next word in that series? Gonad!"

But by leaving the G-word out, removing it, so-to-speak before it is even spoken, she metephorically removes the gonads from BO, thus emphasizing his loss of masculinity. Post-modernist, deconstructed GENIUS!

By not mentioning _____, she can call attention to, and emphasize the same while still maintaining deniability. AxelRove! YMB!

"Gooey... gotcha... gonzo...What's the next word in that series? Gonad!"

But by leaving the G-word out, removing it, so-to-speak before it is even spoken, she metephorically removes the gonads from BO, thus emphasizing his loss of masculinity. Post-modernist, deconstructed GENIUS!

By not mentioning _____, she can call attention to, and emphasize the same while still maintaining deniability. AxelRove! YMB! -cp

I don't know that the coming forward of the General and the CPO was Obama's doing. The only reference to the Obama campaign was on that ABC blog. The general was really ticked off about HRC's lying about sniper fire; he had published an op ed in the NYPost in late March, and was widely quoted contradicting HRC's account. The Philly papers published two letters by Kotyk supporting Obama this month.

"...it was clear the Obama campaign was not ready to look over this issue, calling a conference call with reporters and offering up veterans who have faced sniper fire to take issue with Clinton’s claim." (emphasis added)

Click your heels three times and chant, "Change, change, change." Maybe it will be true.

I don't think Obama's any worse than any other politician. I just get tired of him playing the same games while claiming to be different.

As Ambivablog correctly writes today, Obama wants to heal a divide by standing on one side and inviting everyone to agree with him. If we don't, we're divisive, fearful, selfish, backwards, or racist. Same old s**t, just more pretentious and self-righteous. No thanks.

Pastor Jeff -- none of the rest of the media covered the "Obama campaign conference call" story. The ABC blogticle was mostly a series of quotes by Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson. If the Obama campaign really organized a Hillary-bashing conference call, I would expect more than one report in all the MSM. And I would expect the report to include the name of the responsible "Obama campaign" person. Conference calls are organized by individuals, not amorphous campaigns.